LARPers rejoice! A new Kickstarter project, called Sabertron, will allow you and your fellow followers of the great goddess of the Whispering Eye to fight to the death using wirelessly connected foam swords. The swords, which cost $99 for a two-weapon set, have rings of colored lights around the hilt that note when you’ve been hit by other players. Once the lights go out, you become one of the the Eaten Ones, forced to roam the World of the Undead in the Nevermere for all eternity until the kiss of Princess Mooncake brings you back to life or you just have to sit out the round and drink a Capri Sun over by the backpacks.
Created in Austin by a team of three engineers, the group is looking for $195,000 to complete the swords, which contain an accelerometer and NFC system to tell if two swords hit or they hit a player. They are also working on a special LARPing mode with a bright, bold chest plate that displays your current health. One of founders, Tim Reichard, said “LARPing refers to Live Action Role Playing and is mostly associated with medieval renaissance enactments… think of guys and gals in the park or woods doing sword fights and medieval activities.”
“Kind of geeky, I know,” he added. “Nowadays, LARPers create Boffers (home made wooden swords) to use. Our product isn’t only for LARPers, it is also for anybody who wants to play sword fight and have a detection system that lets the participants know who won. Our Sabertron is also littered with LEDs and has some impressive sound.”
“I came up with this idea when playing in the back yard with my kids about five years ago,” said CEO David Lynch. “I created a few swords from PVC pipe and foam, and it was a lot of fun, but the kids lost interest because it wasn’t interactive. I am a computer engineer and I can do anything I set my mind to do. I finally set my mind to do this and built this system to allow the swords keep score electronically.”
The swords have an on-board display that shows stats and allows you to set game play modes including “One Hit To Win It” and “Eternal Struggle” in which “each hit depletes one to three bars of health, depending on the strength of the hit and the sensitivity setting in the options menu. Ranges from two hard hits, to six small glancing blows will win the game.”
So slash away, Paladins Of The Ancient Order Of The Three-Eyed Sloth! Your LARPing will be improved tenfold by these exciting swords and as you wade through the marshes of Darkwood, on the hunt for the evil Surgoron, keep your weapon at the ready and your wits about you for, as you know, Paul from your wargaming group likes to bop you in the nards.
Do you dream a whole lot? If you have answered in the affirmative, then you would know that sometimes, there will be dreams where you know that you are dreaming and yet also remain in control, while in other dreams, you feel powerless – extremely powerless, and cannot wait to wake up. Well, Kickstarter did carry the Aurora Dream-Enhancing Headband project that has now been fully funded, and what makes this particular device so special is, this device will be able to let you gain control of your dreams.
Kickstarter has a fever at the moment, and the only cure is more tube clocks. For those unaware of this type of gadget, a Nixie tube clock uses heated cathodes in a glass-encased gaseous mixture to display the time, and there are currently two undergoing crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter, both of which launched in the past week.
The two clocks share the same basic technological premise, but have very different design sensibilities, so fans of retro chic can choose between them based on whether they’re more Steampunk or more modern. The Steampunk Nixie Clock is a Vancouver-based project that just launched, and is seeking $6,000 in funding, and the Blub (which is the more modern of the two) has already blown past its $5,000 funding goal.
For the minimalist, the oddly named Blub (play on ‘bulb?’) is the clear clock of choice. It features a very Mac-like aluminum rounded rectangular casing, with a simple light to indicate operational status and four tubes for rendering the numbers to tell time. It’s smaller than you might think at first glance, fitting neatly in an average-sized hand, and it not only tells the time and provides an alarm, but also detects and displays the temperature with the press of a button.
The Blub ain’t cheap: it’ll set you back around $320 US for a pre-order, plus an additional fee for shipping. Blub designer Duncan Hellmers anticipates shipping the first units in May of 2014.
For those more committed to the vintage aesthetic, the Steampunk Nixie Tube Clock offers a lot of wood, some brass, and plenty of extraneous rivets, screws, grills and knobs to drive home that special blend of fantasy and uselessness that makes Steampunk such an appealing design phenomenon. The Steampunk Nixie is more complicated, however, and that means it’s also more expensive: The regular backer pre-order price is $549.
The Steampunk has some special tricks up its sleeve, however, including an LED backlight for the Nixie tubes that provides changeable color options, and each is hand-made. The going price for elaborate Steampunk creations like this tends to easily wander into the thousands, so this is actually a very reasonable ask from project creator Kyle Miller.
The anticipated ship date for the Steampunk Nixie Clock is June 2014, so it’s about on par with the anticipated ship date of the Blub. Whether that means there’s a fairly standard turnaround time on the creation of clocks that use Nixie tubes, I couldn’t tell you, but it means time shouldn’t play a role in your decision between the two.
Toronto-based startup ShopLocket, an e-commerce platform originally designed to let anyone sell anything from a single item to a line of goods quickly and easily via their existing presence on the web, has been acquired by an unusual suitor: PCH International, the company founded by Irish entrepreneur Liam Casey that has made its name operating as the go-between for major electronics brands and their Asian supply partners and manufacturers.
The exact terms of the deal, under which ShopLocket will continue to operate under as a sub-brand, are undisclosed. “It’s a good deal,” said Casey. “Everyone’s really happy.”
The match seems odd at first, but makes sense in light of recent developments at both companies: ShopLocket, run by TC Hardware Battlefield judge Katherine Hague, recently launched its own pre-order sales platform to help hardware startups capitalize on the inertia generated by crowdfunding campaigns, before they reach the stage where they’re able to sell shipping product. There’s a lot of interest coming out of successful Kickstarter campaigns, after all, but often nowhere for that interest to go as startups rarely have the means in place to continue collecting orders after their crowdfunding drive has ended. Perhaps more importantly, ShopLocket also provides a full-fledged alternative to a Kickstarter or Indiegogo-hosted crowdfunding campaign if a startup was interested in going it alone. Casey said the company “closes the loop” that begins at his hardware accelerator, Highway1, giving startups a complete solution for creation, development and sales of their products.
“I picked them for the passion they have for what they do,” Casey said. “They have a passion for the entrepreneur’s journey and an ability to build an authentic relationship with the community.”
Companies are often interested in building their own hardware Kickstarter projects, Casey told us, but they lack the ability to continuously provide accurate and authentic updates about where products are at in the development cycle, and that’s a huge challenge for these startups. PCH and ShopLocket can use their combined expertise to help on that front, which will hopefully result in stronger, more satisfying crowdfunding experiences for the people actually buying the products.
PCH International has recently shone a spotlight on its interest in hardware startups in other ways, too. The company is showing off the first cohort of its new early-stage hardware startup accelerator called Highway1 at a demo day next week in San Francisco. Highway1 offers classes of around 10 startups $20,000 in seed capital as well as engineering and design advice in exchange for between 3 and 6 percent of equity, as well as the relationships PCH has made with key suppliers in China. It also provides support for later stage companies through its existing PCH Accelerator program.
Casey outlined some outcomes tied to those efforts made possible by the ShopLocket acquisition, like the ability to create exclusive products for people and the chance to provide membership-based early access to particular products created by its startup partners. Since it already has factories “queuing up” to get a chance to work with it, PCH has big advantages on the supply side for those looking to crowdfund hardware projects, too.
The ShopLocket addition to the team provides yet another advantage PCH can offer its new target market of emerging hardware companies, and might be a considerable value incentive for those startups evaluating the worth of its accelerator help. So while it’s still an acquisition that on the surface seems a little out of left field, there remains a clear logic to what amounts to a shrewd strategic pick-up. PCH has mostly been an under-the-radar friend to tech hardware companies in the past, but it could be on the brink of stepping into the spotlight as a major contributor the gadget startup movement that’s been growing for the past couple of years now.
I got my first real Guitar Wing Bought it at the Kickstart thing Played it ’til my fingers bled It was the winter Jay Smith and Travis Redding introduced their new $149 guitar rig
The team and some guys from Austin Had a band and were into tech. “Guitar Wing is a wireless controller covered in sensors designed for electric guitars and basses,” said rep Mike Fratamico. It connects right below the neck.
Oh, when I look at their Kickstarter page You see they want $45K And they’re planning on shipping In probably early May And there are 30 days in the campaign
Ain’t no use in wonderin’ About how it works because we can ask Mike: “We are including WingFX with the hardware that acts as a standalone application or a plugin for existing DAW’s like Garage Band, so users who have never used any kind of MIDI controller can start playing with it right away. As with all of our controllers, we have an idea for how they will be adopted but the truly exciting part is seeing what our users end up doing with it. Usually, these are things we never imagined,” he said. And it’s covered in shiny lights.
I asked the team if they’d call it “bitchin’” Mike said “Yes I would.” Can you play it in the kitchen? Presumably there it will also sound good.
“We are small enough to take chances and put out unprecedented products,” said Mike. “We often have little way of knowing how well one of our products will truly perform in the market since our releases are often the first of their kind.” The team made lots of cool instruments And this is the latest in their line.
It only took four hours for the Glyph, a head-mounted “personal theater” from Avegant, to reach its $250,000 funding goal on Kickstarter.
Unlike the Oculus Rift’s focus on virtual reality, or Google Glass which forces a heads-up display into every facet of life, the Glyph is a media-centric device. For now, it offers a nice pair of high-end headphones with a headband that can transform into an immersive display.
The $499 wearable headset, complete with over-the-ear headphones, uses a new display technology the company called “Virtual Retina Display”. The Virtual Retina Display involves no screen at all, instead projecting images directly onto the retina with a complex array of LEDs and mirrors.
According to co-founder Ed Tang, this is meant to mimic the way our eyes work in real life, when they aren’t focused in on a computer or TV or smartphone screen, providing a much sharper, more realistic viewing experience.
The Glyph isn’t supposed to be a virtual reality device that cuts you off. Instead, it’s meant to be a headphone replacement with an optional display.
The Glyph can work natively with any audio or video source (including Xbox, smartphones, Netflix, etc.) through an HDMI/HML cord, and Avegant ensures that users can get to whatever content they want from anywhere in the world through a single cable.
But what about head-tracking?
The Glyph is packed with a 3-axis Gyro, accelerometer, and a digital magnetometer to allow for head-tracking when content is compatible. Tang claims that the team is working on mapping the headtracker to a mouse, with the goal of making most PC-based first person games will work right out of the box.
Later on, they’ll release some developer tools to give coders the option to build out mobile-based content.
We caught up with co-founder Ed Tang to discuss the instant success on Kickstarter and future plans for the Glyph.
TechCrunch: Can you give me a little background on Avegant as a company?
Ed Tang: My co-founder, Allan Evans, was getting his PhD at U of Michigan and doing advanced research on various medical devices and microsystems. He was working on projects for the U.S. government’s national research lab while he was out there, and was encouraged by people in the military to look into building new display technology. For things like night vision and other military uses, the performance has always been really bad on these displays, which causes a lot of eye strain after more than an hour, and users become actively tired.
So he approached things from an engineering standpoint as well as a physiological standpoint, thinking about how we, as humans, see. Our eyes get tired if we stare at displays, but when I look out the window or around the room, things are comfortable and realistic. So we chose to replicate the kind of light we see in real life, which is reflective light. Emissive light doesn’t have the same properties that make it less exhausting and more realistic.
The system he built is a virtual retina display, and it’s a display with no screen. Instead the image is being projected onto the retina, the way we see things in normal life, with a very low-power LED. Kind of like the flashlight on the end of a keychain.
The cool thing is that anything you put into this technology, from a movie to a game or whatever, looks so much more crisp and vivid and comfortable, than any other display we have ever seen.
So once we realized what it could do, we had to make it smaller. At the beginning of last year, the prototypes were the size of a coffee table, and it felt like going to an eye doctor exam. You sat down in this huge machine, and adjusted various objects around you, with tons of cords. Still, we proved the concept, which let us raise a little funding from friends and family, which let us repackage it into the size of a big pair of glasses.
We had some great reviews on that product, and after talking to consumers and looking at test cases, seeing how people wanted to use this, we realized that people are engaging more and more with mobile devices, and less and less with TVs at home. Most of what people do with their smartphones and tablets is watching videos, playing games and listening to music.
The device that really wins is the one that fits what people want to do today, which meant building a very premium set of headphones into this revolutionary display tech. That way, when you want video content, you can flip down the headband and turn headphones into a display.
When we looked at other head-mounted display tech out there, there was never a good audio solution paired with it. We knew we had to change that. But one of the challenges is that if we’re going to replace someone’s high-end headphones, our product has to be really good. People are picky about headphones.
TC: So how did you go about doing that? Do you have people on your team focused solely on the audio experience?
ET: We have a couple of audio engineers on our team. One worked on projects for TI, Amazon, and Google, and they were both trained by the top audio engineers in the world. They helped us a lot on our current design.
We benchmarked our headphones against all of the competing high-end headphones out there, from Sennheiser to Audio Technica to Bose or anything else we could find over $300, and we feel we match up against the best of them. We want the user to start out with a really accurate, super precise sound and then slightly tune it to be more pleasing.
I’d gladly put our headphones up against any audio product over $300.
TC: In your Kickstarter video, you had some great endorsements from Second Life and High Fidelity founder Philip Rosedale and Netflix VP of IT Operations Mike Kail. Why are other people so excited about the Glyph?
ET: These endorsements are well deserved. When it comes to the Glyph and partners, it’s more about helping the entire industry, not about us.
Many people we talk to believe that video won’t stay the same as it is today, where it’s a passive experience around your TV. We’re going to see a massive change in how consumers consume media and what we’re doing here with Glyph is something that excites people in the industry.
For Philip, a realistic looking head-mounted display is the key to virtual reality. It’s what’s always been missing, to let you look around and hear audio change as you turn your head. So that the experience is truly immersive and convincing.
Netflix, on the other hand, is an interesting company that has changed its business model a number of times, from DVD rental to streaming to content creation. This company has seen a huge decline in traditional media delivery first hand, and is being proactive about the future of the mobile market. As bandwidth has gotten cheaper and faster, people can use Netflix on their phone, but the device that delivers the best experience hasn’t reached market yet.
TC: Aside from similar devices we’ve seen from Sony and other large players, the Oculus Rift seems to be one of your competitors in the head-mounted, virtual reality display space. How do you differentiate?
ET: We actually don’t consider ourselves direct competitors with Oculus. They’re solely focused on virtual reality, and growing interest and excitement in the virtual reality space again.
This is fantastic for us, because the more familiar people get with head-mounted displays, the better it is for all of us. That includes Oculus and Google Glass and anything else. But while Oculus is focused on virtual reality, we’re focused on more general audience use.
We want the business professional, or even my mother to use the Glyph. These are people that really want to engage in media and play games and watch movies and listen to music. The Glyph is a multimedia device for every day use, and people listen to more music than they watch video.
So we built something that let them switch from one to the other easily, when they want it.
Another big differentiator between what we do and straight virtual reality is how cut off from the rest of the world you are. You can’t hear or see anything around you. We don’t want to do that.
If you’re going to use our product in the airport or on the train, you need to feel comfortable, so we tried to maximize peripheral vision around the user. That way, when the drink cart comes by on a plane or the passenger next to you wants to go to the bathroom, you know what’s going on.
TC: One of the biggest issues with wearable tech has been that mainstream audiences have trouble wearing their technology. Google Glass and Oculus Rift target geekier, more tech-savvy audiences who are more willing to adopt. How do you plan to tackle the mainstream audience who seems to be resistant to wearables?
ET: When you look at wearable technology, everybody is focused on the technology and not the wearable part. If people aren’t willing to wear it, it doesn’t matter how cool the technology is. I have Google Glass but I feel really uncomfortable wearing it. People stare at you and look at you funny. When I’m just hanging out and talking to my buddy, there’s this thing in between us all the time.
That’s why we went after the headphone form factor. You can wear the Glyph just as you do any other headphones. Since people engage in audio way more than video most of the time, they can replace the headphones they already own and feel totally normal wearing the product. No one around you will think you’re doing something weird by wearing them.
But when you want to tune out the rest of the world and watch a movie, you can flip down the visor and watch movies. We look at it as one small step toward wearable technology, because we’ve given the user something they’re already comfortable with wearing and added an extra feature to it.
That’s why I think the smartwatch will be so successful. Because people already wear watches, so it doesn’t look weird or out of place.
TC: You’ve raised your $250k goal in less than four hours, and it doesn’t look like demand is slowing down. We’ve seen many Kickstarter projects blow past their goal and later run into manufacturing or shipping issues. Are you prepared to supply this sort of demand?
ET: We’ve prepped all of our manufacturing for low quantity and high quantity demand.
For the foreseeable future, we’ll be just fine with this demand. On our Kickstarter pages, we’re claiming a December delivery date, but we expect to have units ready to ship a few months before that. We’ve manufactured a lot of these components already in lower quantities as a test run, to explore and answer all of these questions. And we feel very confident.
Now, it’s just about taking current prototypes we have and improving fit and finish. The prototypes look great and image quality is fantastic, but we want a premium quality product that isn’t even a little bit bulky or heavy. We’re not worried about manufacturing because having more units actually makes it easier for us to scale our model.
Building 1,000 units is easier than building 100.
TC: Companies have been trying this sort of technology for years. What has changed over time that makes this a viable product with lots of demand?
ET: People have been trying to do this for ten or twenty years, but there are a number of reasons why it hasn’t picked up at all.
First, the visual experience has to be there. There hasn’t been a head-mounted display that has a good enough visual experience. The Glyph experience isn’t just decent, it’s better than a TV or a movie theater. In fact, it’s ruined going to the movies for me.
The second thing is form factor. It has to fit in your life. It can’t be something extra you have to carry or something cumbersome that isn’t comfortable to wear. By replacing headphones, the Glyph takes up the same spot in your bag, and even if you don’t watch a lot of video you still have fantastic headphones.
The third factor is that it has to work with people’s existing content. People want to watch their own stuff, portably, and they want to be able to watch it on all the devices they have today. It has to be battery-powered with a single cable. The Glyph runs all the content you already own.
I never wanted to build something that required developers to create content for it. I would hate selling something to someone on Kickstarter and having to tell them that they won’t see good content for it for another six months.
The last part is audio. If you don’t combine audio with it than you only offer part of the experience. It’s the key to letting the general consumer adopt this technology.
Cupcakes are a dime a dozen these days. Bakers are becoming more creative with the sweet treats they’re baking, drawing inspiration from various video game, TV, and movie franchises, like Doctor Who and Harry Potter, to name a few.
If, however, you can’t be bothered by fondant or lack the necessary skills to paint the aforementioned decors onto your baked goodiess, then you can always cheat by using Geeky Sprinkles, which are exactly what its name implies it is.
Three sprinkles are being offered: the Police Box, Steampunk, and Lightning. They were thought up by Tara Theoharis, who is the creator of Geeky Hostess.
These small bits will, for sure, add so much more fun to whatever you’re topping. You can receive a full set containing all three sprinkle types by making a pledge of at least $26(USD) on Kickstarter.
Avegant’s Glyph, the wearable display with built in headphones, has arrived on Kickstarter today as promised, bringing with it “Virtual Retinal Display” and on-eyes goodness. The campaign funding is rising … Continue reading
HiddenRadio was one of the first crowdfunding successes. The original model nearly hit $1 million on Kickstarter in 2012 and spawned legions of fans. The creators, John Van Den Nieuwenhuizen and Vitor Santa Maria, built a small Bluetooth speaker that offered excellent frequency response and acceptable bass with a very cool design aesthetic. Now they’re back for more.
HiddenRadio 2 is the pair’s latest creation and it’s already well on its way to funding. The new model offers surprisingly rich sound out of a case that is about as big as soup can. However, unlike a soup can the HiddenRadio looks great and will remind some of the new Mac Pro with its staid styling, touch-sensitive top, and simple setup.
I got a chance to sit down with Van Den Nieuwenhuizen last week and heard the new HiddenRadio in a nearly empty bar. He compared it with a few popular speaker systems including the Jambox and I was duly impressed. While we couldn’t set it too loud, you could definitely hear a nice presence in the HiddenRadio 2 and excellent bass.
The pair have also added some new features to the device including a far better port placement as well as a way to connect two $119 HiddenRadios together to create a stereo pair. None of their competitors have these features. That is has a noise-cancelling microphone and can act as a speakerphone are just gravy.
The design is very impressive. The outer shell is chromed and there is a touch-sensitve top that allows you to spin a finger to control the volume or tap to turn the music on and off. A single tap will also raise the lid off of the speaker grill for listening.
It’s fascinating to watch mass CE products like this make it in Kickstarter. Whereas the really geeky stuff tends to take off – Pebble watches and Udoo boards are surprisingly popular – the interest peters out once you enter into speaker territory. However, with high-design and low cost items like HiddenRadio you can definitely see a move in a more general direction. I’d love it, for example, if Sony or Samsung put a product up for crowdfunding. It would show a definite interest in the audience and could be a very successful move.
Now here is a Kickstarter project that might just capture your fancy – the Vigo headset which intends to make a difference in your life, and a positive one at that. Just what the heck does the Vigo headset do anyways? It basically will be able to send you an alert whenever you start to nod off unconsciously, as well as send a recommendation on just how tired it thinks you are. You will not look too out of place from the rest of the human populace whenever you wear the Vigo headset, as it goes about monitoring actions such as your eye blink patterns.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Do you dream a whole lot? If you have answered in the affirmative, then you would know that sometimes, there will be dreams where you know that you are dreaming and yet also remain in control, while in other dreams, you feel powerless – extremely powerless, and cannot wait to wake up. Well, Kickstarter did carry the Aurora Dream-Enhancing Headband project that has now been fully funded, and what makes this particular device so special is, this device will be able to let you gain control of your dreams.
Now here is a Kickstarter project that might just capture your fancy – the Vigo headset which intends to make a difference in your life, and a positive one at that. Just what the heck does the Vigo headset do anyways? It basically will be able to send you an alert whenever you start to nod off unconsciously, as well as send a recommendation on just how tired it thinks you are. You will not look too out of place from the rest of the human populace whenever you wear the Vigo headset, as it goes about monitoring actions such as your eye blink patterns.
